My name is: Matthew Milèo.
I’m known as: Creator and founder of Milèo New York.
My expertise is in: Beauty, fragrance, health and wellness and spirituality.
I stay physically healthy with: I was first trained in hatha yoga when I was I college. It felt completely natural for me, as though I had practiced yoga in my past lives before. Now, I continue to practice yoga daily, as well as some swimming and boxing at The Mercedes Club, with a little weightlifting and TRX.
Every morning, I make my signature Vitamix green smoothie, consisting of kale, cilantro, pineapple, blueberries, mango, pea and collagen protein (collagen fuel by Primal Kitchen), tocotrienols and New Chapter’s fermented turmeric. I’m really into collagen and bone broth as daily supplements to my nutritional eating habits.
I keep my emotions balanced with: Two things: I love hatha yoga and I love taking salt baths. Those two practices are the perfect balancing rituals for me to ground my emotions, as well as to open my spiritual connectivity for clarity and insight.
My personal bath concoction includes white frankincense, agarwood, magnolia blossom, white lotus flower and white ginger lily essential oils that I let dissolve first in salt before I put it in the bath (so the oils won’t float on the surface and tingle your sensitive areas—the salt acts a natural solvent).
I use “white” flowers with wood resins, as that is a powerful meditation enhancer and crown chakra opener. It’s also cleansing and restoring and connects you to the pure light within; I do this on Sundays, which is a holy day, the day of purity.
Once a year, usually after New Year’s Day, I do a entirely white bath, as a blessing and an act of spiritual cleansing and renewal. This consists of seven white ingredients including coconut milk, goat milk and coco butter—to name a few. After the bath, I can talk to my spirit guides as my vibration is higher and I am able to increase my capacity for understanding.
I have a very close relationship to my ancestors and I ask them what is going on when I start to feel I need guidance and help. Most of the time, it’s about understanding a point of view I haven’t realized, like something that I had wanted that wasn’t meant for me in the way I had expected. I start to feel more fluid, and I allow the universe to do its thing rather than try to control it. Our need to control tends to make us crazy, and, thus, our emotions go out of whack.
I’m intellectually stimulated by: Right now, it’s summer in New York, and it’s my favorite time to connect with nature.
Winter, for me, is more about introspection: I tend to dive deep into books, movies and podcasts. But, in summer, I like to let all that go and really enjoy Central Park walks, beaching in Fire Island and Montauk, traveling to the Finger Lakes upstate and bike riding to The Cloisters.
I may bring a Deepak Chopra book or listen to the latest podcast from NPR’s “Fresh Air,” but being outside on a Sunken Forest nature walk or swimming in the Pacific Ocean is more my style to stimulate my senses and clear my head for when I’m ready to intellectually fill it again.
I was recently transformed by: My aunt passed away last November, who was a soul mother to me. She was the one who inspired my brand because she had battled cancer for several years, and I created Elixir Oud because of its strong anti-carcinogenic properties to help her skin recover—which it did, but her body couldn’t go on.
Losing her hit me very hard. After six months of grieving, it all turned around, though, as I witnessed her spirit come forth. She saw how sad and depressed I was that she was gone. She told me to “knock it off” and “stop the self-pity” about losing her. She told me she wasn’t gone, but rather she’s in a different dimension and she will be here when we need to talk, just like before when her body was alive.
That experience really jolted me out of my grievance because, for the first time, I didn’t feel that I had lost her. In fact, she specifically said to stop calling her “dead.”
It’s one thing to read about universal energies in a book, but to actually start to understand it in relation to a personal experience was out of this world. I see things a bit differently now: there really isn’t an end or beginning, everything just gets transformed; it changes. So, essentially, I’ve been transformed by the act of transformation itself.
In the last six months, the ritual that has become so important for me is: In grievance, my meditation practice suffered, as I didn’t have the desire or focus I once had to do so. So, I turned to candle-gazing, either by itself or while in my bath.
Candle-gazing is actually one aspect of hatha yoga that I had learned years ago and continues to be my emergency meditation practice when I need it most. It’s perfect for someone who either has a hard time beginning a meditation practice or wants to advance deeper into their current practice.
It opens your third eye, which is your intuition center, and acts like a on off-switch for your crown chakra (which is like your radio frequency antenna to connect to your higher self).
It’s also incredibly simple, relaxing and cleansing for the beliefs that aren’t serving you in the best way—like “I’m not good enough” or “no one understands me” kinda bullshit. It can provide more of an insightful depth if one is seeking images or symbols to appear in the flame.
There are different colors of candle one can use for each intended purpose. I usually prefer white, as that is the most pure and powerful for all types of meditations, and can provide the most clarity.
Here’s how you can do it too: Simple! Grab a candle, light it, sit down and stare into the flame.
Prep the room, so that no distractions, lights or noises interfere with your meditation. The color of the candle can summon the appropriate spirit guide to help with the intended purpose—such as blue for creativity, green for love, yellow for ambition, red for courage and violet for wisdom.
An additional benefit is that it is cleansing to the eyes, as you may start to tear after a few minutes.
Start with a short duration and lengthen it as you do it more. You may even start to see something that someone is trying to give to you.
It helps me live my process because: It’s a reminder that, just like the flame of a candle, we are just energy in a form of body, mind and spirit. The candle’s flame will continue to burn if there is a source to nurture it and to sustain its life. Otherwise, it fades and eventually transforms into something else.
In order for us to continue to shine, we need to do the work to nurture ourselves, to fuel our own life energy and our vitality. There are many variables in the world that will try to extinguish our light, so, in order to negate that, we must provide a pathway for our expression to always flow freely. That’s why when we feel “stuck” or “stagnant,” it feels like the complete opposite of this concept. And, when one does feel that way, there is a hopelessness that rears its head, as though something is squashing our very own life force.
Practice whatever you need to get your blood flowing, your energy going and your spirit joyous again. We are here not just for our own purpose, but also to help others in their purpose, because others will help us when needed—the universe guarantees this cycle.
Whatever you choose to do, put in the work and give your best, as that is at the very core of living your process.
Take a “Moment” to learn more about Matthew Milèo’s journey here.
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Photo by Visual Citizens